To Grow Up
by Noclaf
Summary: For the Fire Nation, it was only three years.


"When will you ever grow up Zuzu?" It's Azula wrapping herself around his bedpost, serpentine and poisonous. "You're such a dumb baby."

Zuko doesn't bother to turn toward her, hands carefully adjusting his topknot. "Get out." He growls around the golden pin between his teeth.

Azula thumps down on to his bed and gives him her saddest lion-puppy eyes through the mirror. "But this could be out last goodbye brother!" She rolls so that she's spread eagle and her head dangles off the edge, "Your hair is crooked."

"Get. Out." Zuko growls. His hair is crooked, but he jams the pin through anyway.

"Zu-zuuuuu! This is our last goodbye! Dad's going to kill you for real this time." She rolls into a siting position, face solemn. "Mom's not around to save you anymore."

"Father doesn't have anything to do with this, it's between me and General Haung. This is important, top secret stuff that doesn't have anything to do with you or Mom, Azula. So GET OUT!" Zuko punctuates the last bit with a fireball at Azula's head, but she nimbles out of his blast.

"Poor Zuzu, you don't know a thing. Insulting the Firelord's trusted advisor in his own war room, just what were you thinking? Maybe you'll be lucky and he'll just banish you."

"Shut up!" Screams Zuko, his voice cracking. "You don't know anything about anything!" He throws another fireball, smaller and more precise, but it only catches air as Azula dodges again. His bed starts on fire while Azula dances away. He kicks flame at her, useig both feet, driving her out his door into the hallway.

"Get OUT!" He roars pushing a wall of flame behind her. When the sparks settle she's nowhere to be seen.

Zuko takes a few deep breaths and then turn back to his mirror. His topknot is more than crooked now, and he pulls the mess apart to start over. As he brushes his hair out, he catches sight of Azula, leaning almost out of sight around the hallways corner.

Her expression takes a moment to place; it could almost be concern.

Zuko shivers, and jams his hair into place. He needs to talk to uncle.

"Zuko, I am glad to see you my nephew." Uncle Iroh draws him into a hug, his voice warm but concerned. "I thought you wished to remain alone in your quarters before your Agni-Kai."

"I did." He pauses, and then draws a deep breath, "but Azula..." He trails off unsure how to continue. He feels like a child, running to mother for protection, unable to stand up agentst a sister two years his junior.

"Nevermind, it's stupid." He says pushing away from Uncle.

But Iroh's hand locks on his wrist. "What did your sister say?" His voice has is the harsh note of command in it, and then moe gently, "Tell me?"

Zuko hesitates, "She said..." A deep breath, "she said I was stupid..." And he feels stupid saying this, "...that dad.." And his mind wants to skip over it, "...that for real.." And he cannot finish this. Cannot tell his uncle what haunts his dreams, because saying it out loud might make it real.

"Your father want you dead." Uncle's face is grave and he does not look Zuko in the eye. "He wishes Azula to be heir and you have given him an excuse to eliminate you."

"No!" Thinks Zuko "My Father loves me!" But he cannot say the words out loud. Uncle draws him down to the table, set with tea, and Zuko realizes he is trembling. That he cannot stop trembling.

"My nephew" says Uncle, his voice set with grief, "you are grown in the eyes of the Fire Nation. Old enough to attend a war council. Old enough for Agni-Kai." He pauses, eyes finally sliding tears Zuko's "Old enough for death... Or banishment."

There is a long pause where neither says anything. Only Zuko's harsh breathing breaks the silence.

Finally uncle speaks. "Go back to your quarters." He says; "I will speak with your father."

As Zuko leaves Uncle calls from behind him; "Zuko, you will be an adult in the Eyes of the Nation tomorrow, remember that."

Zuko wanders the halls In a daze, he feels hot and cold and twice has to duck into a corner to dry heave. He makes it back to his bedroom where the linens are still burnt, and heaves again. He cannot do this. He cannot challenge his own father. His father loves him.

Zuko remembers running on the beaches of Ember Island, his father laughing and tossing him in the air. He remembers his father's pride when he first bent a flame. His father loves him.

He wonders why he cannot call Father "dad". He tries to remember his father's pride after his first day at the academy, but his mother's face is the only one he can conjure. He cannot remember the last time father smiled at him.

After Lu-ten had died, his grandfather had hated him too, but before that... When he was small his grandfather would set him on his knee and feed him fireflakes one-by-one.

When had he gotten too old for his father and forefather? When did little mistakes become life or death?

He wishes he could still be a boy who played with knives and coddled turtle-ducks.

He wishes he had never grown up.

Zuko is still awake sometime between midnight and dawn, wrapped on a singed blanket on his tiny balcony. The moon is bright and only a few stars are visible. The second on the right is brightest.

Zuko stares at it unblinkingly, trying not to think of tomorrow, and watches it grow brighter.

And brighter.

And brighter.

He stands up, blanket falling off of him, and shields his eyes with his hand as the star falls. It is not a star, Zuko realizes, but a tiny spirit.

"Hello." Says the spirit.

"Hello" says Zuko, and then formally " I am Zuko, son of Firelord Ozi and Firelady Ursa; heir to Fire Nation."

"Are you really?" Asks the spirit.

"Of course!" Says the prince, "Wha- Who are you?"

"I'm a fairy," says the spirit, "You may call me Tink. And you should know better than to give your name away so easily."

The next morning the Firelord burns with rage, the cowardly boy has disappeared, and without a body and a reason, the court's suspicious eyes turn his way.

"RUFIO RUFIO RU-FI-OOOOooooo!"

He loves when they chant his name. Loves the way their eyes turn to him, they're adoration and respect in their smiles. Loves the way they love him totally and unconditionally.

After all, he is their leader.

He rides the glider down it's track, swings from the trapezes, and drops into his frenzied court.

There is a pirate, and they kill pirates (and lawyers, whatever they are, can die too).

Rufio watches the lawyer struggle through the adventures of Neverland and hates him. Peter Pan was gone or dead long before he arrived in Neverland, and it was Pan's fault the Lost Boys had been so pathetic when he arrived.

Rufus's own arrival to Neverland is the brightest and fuzziest of his memories. He remembers the joy of sledding for true first time, but not why he had never done it before. He knows he's never heard of Indians until he met the Chief, but he knew to hate pirates long before he saw them.

The first time Rufio played with the Lost Boys they're were less than a dozen of them, dirty, unorganized, and grieving Peater Pan. They had latched on to him when he showed them how to build a lean-to. He stayed because they helped him imagine a bowl of fireflakes that he ate one-by-one.

Rufio remembers learning basketball, skateboarding, marbles, jacks, tag, hide-and-seek, ball-and-cup, rugby, mother-may-I, and a thousand other games, but doesn't know when he learned to fight. He taught the Lost Boys how to hold a sword or shield; how to create a strategy and follow through, how to retreat and recover. The Boys teach him how to make a fire, but Rufio cannot understand why fire will not simply appear the way food will. Tink might know but she won't share.

Rufio watches the Lost Boys try to teach the lawyer how to exercise the way he taught them, and tries to remember who taught Him. It gives him vertigo and reminds him sharply that he cannot fly. To fly is to be free from Neverland, and Rufio never wants to leave.

When the lawyer learns to fight, and fly and crow, Rufio admits this man is the pan. He wonders what that means for him and his boys. He never finds out.

When Rufio looks into the eyes of Peter Pan, he finally sees what he can never have. "If I had a dad," he croaks, "I'd want him to be just like you". But his father will never be like Peater pan.

his father is the Firelord.

His father is a pirate.

And Rufio kills pirates.

...

A/n I wrote this on my phone at work and finished it at the bar. I apologize for the mess that it is, and I'll try to clean it up later. I just needed this to be up and out.


End file.
